Friday: I was once a fan of economics. From the supply-demand curve to the Engel coefficient, from Adam Smith to Keynes, from Morgan Stanley to Greenspan...everything. To be honest, at that time, I didn't know the relationship between these things and survival. Nowadays, even if things are far away from economics, those rational, quantitative, and macro thinking modes are subtly affecting their behavior. But the question is, who is going to dig into the meaning of those data right now! We don’t need to delve into private equity, futures, P2P, insurance, stocks, real estate... That’s right, all these wealth management products have been packaged into gift boxes by “experts” in economic terms and sold to the public, using the movie "Big Short" The point is: no one cares what is in the carton, even if it is "shit"!
What's surprising about "Big Short" is that it popularizes a bunch of professional terms that make the public headache, such as subprime loans, credit default swaps (CDS), credit rating systems, etc., in the simplest and rude way to popularize the audience. . How simple and rude is, listen to rock music, and count the number of "Fuck" and "Shit" in the movie.
Text: Taixu Palace Editor: Mr. Friday
Picture: Network
1. Edit stream of consciousness, use music as visual accent
I think everyone has heard the song "Bohemian Rhapsody" (the movie of the same name is currently being screened in China), and the lyrics sometimes confess that he killed someone, sometimes pop out an Italian MamaMia (my mother), and sometimes Shout Bismillah (Allah). The accompaniment style of the song has changed from symphony to pop to heavy metal... This is considered opera thinking in music, and it is probably stream of consciousness in literature.
It can be said that the editing style of "Big Short" interprets this stream of consciousness to the extreme. Let's take a look at those plot passages:
1. When the fund manager ran to the bank to sell real estate and was willing to pay premiums, and the staff laughed from ear to ear, the director directly sang pop rap music. Not only the music, but even the music MV was also added in, laughing from ear to ear, while the star twisted his buttocks, plus a mix of several banknote shots, the character’s thinking, emotions, desires, ignorance, and vulgarity. "Flow" came out.
2. When the characters in the movie were arguing about mortgage securities, subprime mortgages, shares, etc., the director took into account the embarrassment of non-professional audiences and jumped directly to a female star lying in the bathtub to take a bubble bath. While washing, we will popularize financial knowledge for you. Of course, the director did not forget to give you a croaking duck for a second before the jump.
3. Two entrepreneurial undergraduates went to JPMorgan Chase (financial company) to discuss cooperation and frustrated. When they found the prospectus that was thrown on the ground and discovered business opportunities, the director used to express the mood of the two at this time and the kind of crooked play tricks. The director directly asked a group of young people to put on their pajamas and sing NIRVANA's "Lithium" with the guitar. Good guy, some irrelevant scenes and character clips like MV-like passages show the cool, funny, and hysterical effects of the financial market.
This is stream-of-consciousness editing. This kind of editing abounds in this film, and it is also in Bibi’s "Vice President" nominated for this year’s Oscar Award by the film’s director. Of course, this is in David Fincher, Lars von Trier’s films are even more commonplace.
This method not only improves the sense of rhythm of the movie in terms of fluency, but also plays a role of visual accent in plot, mood and thought expression, but this kind of accent is purely visual and auditory, rather than mechanically narrated lines. That's it.
2. The contrast between rock ruffian and popular fake
There are four protagonists in "Big Short" (four groups to be precise). They are two fund company managers, a bank employee, and a pair of college entrepreneurs.
▲ Good guy, most of the film distributors, for publicity purposes, are stunned to replace the two college student protagonists on the poster with the guest star Brad Pitt!
Anyone who has seen the movie knows that these four groups of characters are the only people who can correctly predict before the American financial crisis, and they are the only people who dare to short the entire American economy. Opposite them are hundreds of millions of followers.
So how are these people different from others? In other words, how does the movie show this difference?
▼ Look at several heroes in the movie:
1. "Mike Berry, Hedge Fund Manager"
This buddy says he is a manager, but he wears a torn shirt in the office all day long, barefoot, and listens to heavy metal (avant-garde metal to be precise); he does not communicate, does not understand "sarcasm", does not make jokes; he speaks directly, Can't pretend (listen to that: in terms of numbers, I am indeed better than Greenspan). Good guy, I don't doubt that this guy wants to play rock and roll, but who dares to take care of his financial management!
2. "Mark, a fund manager under Morgan Stanley"
This condescending fund manager under Morgan Stanley is even more extreme. Since childhood, his teacher questioned the motivation of high grades: he wanted to find the contradictions in the Bible gospels! At the beginning, we mentioned the number of "Fuck" in this movie. That's right, the manager called out that half. No wonder he can't get along with other civilized people who wear suits and tie ties!
3. "Two entrepreneurial college students"
To put it bluntly, these two entrepreneurial college students are two young men who made money by cleverness and speculation. Of course, they are still beggars compared to the rich, and they have been trying to get on the boat of the upper-class rich.
However, what is the difference between the two young people and the other dicks?
This is very important. The theoretical basis for their choice of investment is based on logical analysis and experimental investigation, rather than following the flow of investment.
This is actually a bit like the psychology of people who play rock and roll, not into the mainstream. (Of course, this choice is another matter of being active and passive. What's more, isn't rock and roll becoming the mainstream in China now?)
4. "Bank Clerk"
This Deutsche Bank employee is holding the salary of the unit while taking advantage of the company's loopholes and flaws to make extra money.
Only two things are recognized in his value system: money and facts.
So what can make this kind of person be the beneficiary before the storm comes, I think there are two points: one is that his scientific outlook pursues the personality of facts, and the other is that he is profitable and only wants to win the share. , Don't be greedy for big money.
This is enough "rock and roll". It reminds me of what He Yong, who was the Three Masters of Magic Rock, said when he was fighting a copyright lawsuit: I just want to win both fame and fortune! That's straightforward enough!
Fourth, punk-style expression and rap-style battle
The "Punk" in my mind should have the following characteristics: (provided that the meaning is not affected) The three chords that can be played will never use five chords; the one that can be tuned down is never like Han Red is trembling and trembling like that; emotions that can be expressed with a punch or a word "Fuck" never play long word games...
The black-style rap battle is slightly different from the debate meeting. The latter relies on arguments and arguments to win, while the former relies on aura and pure on-the-spot resilience.
Yes, I think "Big Short" has this kind of punk and rap thinking. In other words, it presents those complicated financial terms and financial people in the simplest rhetorical way.
▼ Let’s see:
When Mark’s fund team discovered that there may be a bubble in real estate, the director did not focus on finding and explaining the bubble, but directly brought the investigator and the person under investigation to the table to confront——
When they are looking for a real estate seller, the director directly asks them to go to the seller’s office to talk to the sales manager;
They want to understand the person who buys the mortgage, so they just want Mike to squat by the pole and talk to the stripper;
They want to investigate the securities institution and simply go directly to the office of the "Standard & Poor's Rating Agency" and face-to-face with the person in charge...
It can be said that almost as soon as anyone mentioned in the plot of the movie, the director immediately made the conflicting parties sit at the table and hit Huanglong. There is no extra bedding, and there are no roundabouts. This approach runs through the movie, from the confrontation between the fund manager Mike and his owner at the beginning to the confrontation between Mark and the financial tycoon at the end. This is true in the plot and visual processing: After Mark finished talking with the CDO manager, the director asked several groups to go out directly on the rental and luxury extension cars. The visual contrast is simple, direct, and rude!
Therefore, the rhythm of the whole movie is fast, clear and direct. This is not what punk is!
5. The realm of "gambling" in "Big Short"
If we only look at it from the perspective of entertainment value and popular tastes, it is estimated that the visual and plot stimulation brought by "Big Short" is far less than that of Hong Kong and Taiwan movies such as God of Gamblers, Man of Gamblers, God of Gamblers, and God of Cookery. But the problem is What is left of that kind of Hong Kong and Taiwan gambling movies besides these!
Let's look back at the four groups of characters in "Big Short". We must know that these people are considered winners from the perspective of market prediction and investment direction, but the creators did not use their victory to satisfy the audience's stimulus for rich wealth. Demand (like "Pancake Man", "The Richest Man in Xihong City", etc.). On the contrary, three of the four groups have put their values in a critical perspective since the beginning of the investment.
▼ Therefore, we will see the following scenes:
When the Mark team confronted the head of the Standard & Poor’s rating agency, the other party issued this question:
I wonder what your motives are for coming to me. Is it good for you to change the rating? How many credit default swaps (CDO) have you bought, and what good people do you both pretend to be!
Two college students danced in excitement when they confirmed that real estate was a bubble, and when they were buying short real estate to make a profit, the person who helped them with the transaction angrily stopped them:
"You two are betting that the U.S. economy will collapse. This means that if we make the right bet, people will be homeless, a large number of people will be unemployed, they will lose their retirement savings, they will lose their pensions... the unemployment rate will rise by 1%, and the number of deaths will be Add 40,000 people, understand!".
So there was a scene where the two went to the newspaper to try to expose the real estate scam. More than that, at the end, after the outbreak of the US financial crisis in 2008, the film creators did not forget to let two young people who made money walk into those closed companies for a while, thus awakening the viewer’s society. Responsibility.
Not to mention the person who works in the bank to get money and secretly exposes the bank to make extra money, not to mention, he himself repeatedly emphasized in the play that "I am not a good thing! I am just a speculator who makes disaster money."
At the end of the movie, I did not forget to explain the situation of the four groups of people: being interrogated, changing careers, living in obscurity, and protecting environmental rights...
In this way, the film does not have a high-profile happy ending. Not only will it not give the audience the entertainment effect of gambling riches and dream-like members, but it will also implant a pessimistic attitude towards the market economy; towards the government , The skepticism of the system and professional institutions; and the sense of guilt and responsibility towards ordinary people...
Throughout this "Big Short", in terms of commercial visibility, it uses clever black humorous character structure and contradictions to structure the entire movie, and narrates the entire story with a hearty and simple and rude rock style. Strong audiovisual aesthetics;
And this kind of rhythm and montage processing is itself an innovation in film art. Undoubtedly, it has created a new narrative method for economic and political films;
In terms of the social value of the film, a director, screenwriter, and writer can dig into the internal transactions of the financial market so deeply and so professionally (the details even reach the level of a lawyer), which in itself is a kind of extreme social responsibility It also reflects the professionalism and height of other film creators.
As for us, let alone movies, at least no teacher in the macroeconomics and financial marketing courses I have heard has linked financial securities to the happiness of the people. This really responds to the principle of "rationality" in economics!
Finally, let’s end our article with a passage from Mark in "Big Short":
"It's not that fraud is immoral, nor that fraud is evil, but that in the past 15,000 years of history, fraud and superficiality have never been successful. Have we all forgotten...
Looking at these stupid Wall Street people making great mistakes, I only know that in the end it is ordinary people who bear these pains. The rise and fall of the people always suffer..."
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